


Moonshine-epilogue.doc

by LydeNicoKITE



Series: no feeling is final (short stories) -2020 [6]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Engineer Nicky, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Team as Family, Writer Joe with reading glasses is something that can be so personal, of course Yusuf wrote his best novel when he met Nicky is that even a spoiler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydeNicoKITE/pseuds/LydeNicoKITE
Summary: “Why are you here?”“Because I still love you.”Apparently, it was this easy to solve things, a nice passage in the resolution at the end of one of Yusuf’s novels —Look, Nicky, don’t you think these two sentences fit nicely together?—but reality was much more complex than that. Their reality was a mix of too many variables to fit inside a single paragraph, no matter how many times Joe tried to write the perfect ending in his head.Reality meant that when Yusuf looked at Nicky, he didn’t see just anger. He also saw how Nicky was gripping the door, as if he needed strength. He’d seen how Nicky had looked at him, time frozen, the moment he’d opened the door. For a split second, Nicky had looked relieved and happy to see him.Then he’d almost slammed the door in Yusuf’s face.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: no feeling is final (short stories) -2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839736
Comments: 10
Kudos: 119





	Moonshine-epilogue.doc

### Moonshine-epilogue.doc

Yusuf thought he knew Nicky, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing him this angry. It wasn’t anger exspressed through loud recriminations, twisting his face in a sneer, painting his cheeks red, the kind of reactions Yusuf could describe in one of his books. Nicky was looking at him with eyes like mirrors, pale blue reflecting back every defect Yusuf found when he looked at himself in the morning. Like Nicky could read perfectly well why Yusuf had come back. Nicky could read _him,_ and he’d already found most of the the bad parts.

Nile had told Yusuf he could be like this, but he’d never been in the position to witness what she meant until this moment.

_Nicky can be scary when he’s really angry. He doesn’t even have to raise his voice or tell you he’s pissed off. It’s just that a moment before his face is blank, then you see how much he feels everything. I know it doesn’t seem like it, he’s very controlled all the time, but you’ll see it sooner or later._ She’d looked at him, then, pensive, as if she was evaluating him. She’d smiled, not unkindly. _That is, if you decide to stick around._

Anger was mixed with hurt in the way Nicky had spoken, voice low and vibrant with emotions, when he’d seen Yusuf standing in front of his door. Three months had passed since the last time they saw each other.

“ _Why are you here?_ ”

“ _Because I still love you_.”

Apparently, it was this easy to solve things, a nice passage in the resolution at the end of one of Yusuf’s novels — _Look, Nicky, don’t you think these two sentences fit nicely together?_ —but reality was much more complex than that. Their reality was a mix of too many variables to fit inside a single paragraph, no matter how many times Joe tried to write the perfect ending in his head.

Reality meant that when Yusuf looked at Nicky, he didn’t see just anger. He also saw how Nicky was gripping the door, as if he needed strength. He’d seen how Nicky had looked at him, time frozen, the moment he’d opened the door. For a split second, Nicky had looked relieved and happy to see him.

Then he’d almost slammed the door in Yusuf’s face.

“Please, Nicky. I want to talk,” Yusuf stuck his foot in the doorway, knowing fully well that if Nicky didn’t want to talk to him it wouldn't help. Instead, Nicky just looked at Yusuf leaning awkwardly on the wall, his clothes wrinkled from the trip, and exhaled.

“Come in.”

Nicky stepped back quickly, careful to leave space between him and Yusuf. To think of all the times Yusuf had received a complete different welcome –Nicky smiling wide, laughter bubbling up as he took Yusuf’s hand and dragged him inside, kissing him before they even remembered to close the door– Joe couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness and regret. 

The flat was just as Joe remembered it: an orange sofa with blue and yellow pillows occupied one wall, opposite to the television, and closer to the entrance a long and narrow table was covered in books. An old single silver candelabra stood on top of the biggest pile, _it came from my nonna’s house, Nile finds it charming_.

The table could technically fit up to six people, those sitting on one side being basically trapped against the wall, but Yusuf mostly remembered the nights when everyone in their group managed to eat around it, sitting on terrible ikea chairs. Lykon and Andy at the head of the table, Quỳnh and Nile laughing near Nicky, then Booker, his wife, Copley and Joe himself, his hand resting on Nicky’s under the table. 

When Joe used to stay at Nicky’s, they usually left only two chairs by the ‘study table’, so that they could work side by side –Nicky preparing his classes, Joe writing– but now Yusuf could see just one chair, in front of it ‘I Promessi Sposi’ left among the engineering books like an afterthought. 

The missing chair was just a chair, he thought. But it was also the result of a deliberate decision, and Joe didn’t know if he was feeling sorry for himself, not having a place beside Nicky anymore, or for Nicky, who had decided he couldn’t stand the sight of the seat Joe’d left empty. For someone used to explore feelings like Joe, loneliness was something you could see, hanging in the air like fog.

It was a few minutes after 9pm and the air smelled faintly of smoke. Nicky only smoked when he was alone, rarely with Joe. _It gives me time to think. Wait, are you drawing me? I don’t hold the cigarette like that, you make me look debauched_.

_I was going for ‘well-fucked’, which is the truth._

Nicky was leaving them time to think, but he kept his thoughts to himself. If he saw Yusuf noticing that their photo was missing, a gap between the photo of Quỳnh, Andy and Nicky on the women’s wedding day and the candid shot of Nile and Nicky dressed in fluorescent jackets for a weird project back in their uni days, he didn’t show it. 

Nicky’s job of deleting Yusuf’s traces from the flat was impressive, a clean cut. Not even Yusuf’s yellow scarf, which had ended up on top of a sideboard after a wild night of Scrabble –yes, Scrabble, there were too many teachers or writers in their little group– had been spared. 

“You put away our photo,” Yusuf said, eyes on Nicky. There it was, the hurt, naked and ugly on Nicky’s face, and it nearly broke Yusuf right there and then. 

“You left.”

Their story — _ending_ — made sense.

Yusuf could swear that it had made perfect sense. Who fell in love in six months and moved to another city for a guy you’d just met? Nevermind how wonderful he was, how you _fit_ together. Nevermind that he was the perfect height to kiss him, that he had an adorable, rare laugh –a snort, really– , that he cooked while listening to music and danced terribly only when he had an audience he could trust. Nevermind that this guy’s best friend was shocked by how easily he’d let you in his life, the level of trust you’d been granted. (Nile had looked at Yusuf with a hint of mistrust, ‘ _I’m his best friend_. _It’s my job to wonder if you’ll stick around.’_ )

Yusuf remembered freezing hands on his eyes and Nicky speaking softly in his ear, ‘ _I hope you like this, happy birthday Joe’_ , and then a cake and a new notebook on the study table, a surprise made with such care that Yusuf had felt his heart beating fast like after eight cups of coffee and an all-nighter. They’d known each other for a _week_ by then. Yusuf was the one who followed his heart, but not this much. Not when he cared so much he was scared to admit it to himself. He also had duties, to his family and friends and at work, that he couldn’t forget.

“Of course I did. I had to. I have a book tour, I have... a life.”

It made sense. 

“I have a life too, but I made space for you,” Nicky said. Nicky who thought he couldn’t speak well like him, yet could always say what he meant in front of Yusuf. Nicky looking— _betrayed_ , that’s the word Yusuf would have used in one of his books. He noticed Nicky was wearing a blue fleece sweater he associated with sad, cold nights. Nicky gave things an order, like a good engineer did. There was a language you had to learn in order to understand him. Nicky had confessed that Yusuf was coded with a warm orange highlighter: the colour of dawn, autumn and tangerines. Yusuf wondered if Nicky still liked orange. 

“I made space for you,” Nicky repeated, tone heavy “I fell in love with you and you never stopped me, not once. You never said we were going too fast. You held me close as much as I did.” 

Nicky was right. 

Andy had been the one to introduce them properly. They’d actually met at her wedding, but it hadn’t gone really well, the conversation between them going from stilted to confrontational to awkward again. They just hadn’t clicked at all, and it was a pity because even if they lived in different cities they shared most of their closest friends. Yusuf couldn’t understand the appeal of the engineer and his ill-fitting shirts, especially after he’d heard Quỳnh praising his company more than once. Nicky had told him quite plainly he couldn’t stand his ‘lit student snobbishness’. As far as disastrous first meeting went, it was worthy of a world record. It took them six minutes and thirty-five seconds to have Nicky storm off and avoid him for the rest of the day.

Andy had tried introducing them again three months later. Somehow, maybe because this time Yusuf was in Nicky’s city feeling a bit lost and lonely and Nicky wasn’t half drunk on wine, things were different. _Very_ different. “I told you you would like him” different. “What do you mean he told you you could stay at his place instead of a hotel” different. “I think I love him” different.

“You’re right. I know I fucked up. Can we please talk about this again?” Yusuf tried, trying to get a grip. He couldn’t let the familiarity of the flat muddle his thoughts, not when Nicky seemed so far away from him, even if they were in the same room.

“Please look at me, Nicky. You know I regretted my words as soon as I reached the train station.”

Nicky finally looked at him, and in his eyes there was the spark of kindness that Yusuf loved more than anything in the world.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Nicky asked him.

“I hear sleeping on that sofa is a privilege few people have been granted.”

“Yeah, only best seller writers with charming smiles,” Nicky said. As soon as the words left his mouth he seemed to realise how soft his reply had sounded, how in tune with Yusuf’s light tone, but he didn’t look away. Yusuf was the one who lowered his eyes.

Nicky offered him some leftovers and Joe ate in silence while Nicky cleaned the kitchen around him. Joe had always loved that room the most, because it was small, square and luminous, perfect to write or sketch alone in the early morning after prayer. Nicky knew this, of course. They’d been together for six months, the time it took Joe to write his last novel, but during that time secrets had been spilled one after another in the soft safety of their bubble.

“I know why you’re here. Why now, I mean,” Nicky finally said, while he was still drying one last plate in his hands.

“You know me too well, Nicky.”

“I know you well enough.”

Yusuf didn’t like the subtle jab in Nicky’s words, he didn’t want to lose the calmness of the surreal evening.

“Well, why am I here?”

“Because you published the book.”

Joe was surprised, to put it midly. He had expected a Nicky-sentence, short but full of feelings, something on the lines of “Because you realised it’s worth it”, or “Because you want another chance and now you can take it”. He knew Nicky knew about Joe’s plans to move closer to Andy and Quỳnh, which also meant closer to Nicky, under the excuse that Andy was his editor.

But Nicky was talking about the book. About ‘Moonshine’, now available in every bookstore, the dark blue and silver cover designed by Joe himself.

“I don’t understand.”

Nicky raised one eyebrow, then left the room without a word, leaving Yusuf confused and alone in the kitchen.

‘Moonshine’ was going to be his big book. His best of the best. Joe knew it, Andy knew it. The only way he could surpass that would be by changing genre altogether, a challenge he was secretly looking forward to. He’d written ‘Moonshine’ in record time, five months, four of them in that same kitchen, or on Nicky’s bed.

It was the thing he’d missed the most after he left Nicky, the moment before falling asleep, when Yusuf looked back at what he had written during the day. Nicky sometimes read over his shoulder, or let Yusuf read out loud the passages he liked the most or hated. 

“ _What do you think_?”

“ _I love the conflict you set up, I really wish I could read what happens next_ ,” _Nicky looked at him, Joe was starting to find endearing everything about him, even the dark circles under his eyes. In the partial dark of the room, Nicky looked soft, as if he had been painted by someone who loved him and wanted to capture him at his best._

“ _Why are you focusing on the conflict, this is a romance novel. I just read you the big kiss scene, don’t laugh!_ ”

“ _I try to appreciate the themes of the story and you just want me to be happy for Luca getting his big kiss? Okay then, how serious of you,” Nicky kissed him from a weird angle, not caring when Joe’s reading glasses partially got in the way. “I love how you wrote their love. I love how their kiss felt a hundred years in the making and inevitable. You are an incredible writer, Joe, and I’m so lucky to witness your talent and be loved by you.”_

They’d forgotten about the book after that, Joe remembered. _Of course_ , he thought. _I am an idiot_.

Nicky came back, but Joe already knew what he had in his hands. It was ‘Moonshine’, paperback edition, the cover removed like Nicky always did when he was still reading a book. 

Nicky was standing still in the middle of the kitchen, flipping quickly through the pages until he got nearly to the end of the book. He looked up from the pages for a moment, as if to make sure that Joe was still in front of him, then he started reading out loud.

“ _He could point out many good reasons why it would be wiser for him to leave the city,_ ” he started, his voice wavering for a second, “ _but every time he seriously considered leaving, something made him change his mind. It was mostly Luca the one making him stay, he realised, as one realises obvious things almost too late. Luca would say something like: ‘We will have time to fix it in the summer,’ and all the good, valid reasons to leave before that time disappeared.”_

Yusuf had forgotten how to breathe. He was standing now, looking hopelessly at the spectacle of Nicky reading his own written words. 

_“Not leaving wasn’t a sudden decision, but more of a collection of missed occasions. Every day he had a hundred chances to leave and don’t come back, to leave and forget verdigris eyes looking at him with fragile hope, but by the end of the day, he was still in the city. He was still with Luca, nevermind the Plague–_ ”

“Nicky.”

“You wrote us the perfect ending,” Nicky smiled sadly, closed the book. 

“One where I didn’t leave.” Yusuf said, mostly to himself. 

“One when I was enough to make you stay.”

“Nicky, it is not like that. I needed time, I needed to understand if we were real, if the happiness I was feeling wasn’t just me getting lost in a parallel dimension where all I had to do was write and wait for you to come back from uni so I could be with you again.” 

“Our six months weren’t a fucking _holiday_ for me, Joe. You made me feel like I was just a parenthesis in your life, leaving as soon as the book was almost over, I felt _insignificant_ ,” Nicky replied, shaking his head “ I know I stopped answering your texts and I only made things harder, refusing to talk about us when you were still here, but I was hurt. I needed time as well to forgive you.” 

“Did you? Did you forgive me?”

“Our love story is a New York Times best-seller,” Nicky huffed. “I was trying to hate you while reading this, but it only made me realise how much I missed you. I know you love book endings, but we’re not a story you can write.” Nicky left ‘Moonshine’ on the table, his eyes not leaving Joe. “You have to stay and finish it yourself.”

“I could never write well enough to give you justice, Nicolò.”

“Then don’t. I told you, you just need to stay.”

“You put away our photo,” Yusuf said, but it was an half-hearted attempt to make Nicky say he was forgiven. He didn’t have to strength to ask a second time. 

“I didn’t need a photo to miss you.”

Yusuf’s hands were sweating. Silence fell on them again, awkward, and Yusuf couldn’t for once find the words. He just wanted to kiss Nicky and _stay_. 

“For fuck’s sake, Joe,” Nicky took Joe’s face in his hands, “Just _ask_ me.”

“Do you love me?” _Can I stay? Am I forgiven?_

Nicky was smiling. In a book, Joe realised, they would be a comma away from kissing. 

“I never stopped.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year's Eve!


End file.
